Article feeder



Feb, 11, 1941. B. E. sar-:MEL l ARTICLE FEEDER Filed March 14, 1939 i Ul Patented Feb. 11, 1941 UNITED STATES yPATENT orties N ARTICLE FEEDER Application March 14,

8 Claims.

My invention relates to devices for delivering coins, tokens and generally similar articles from bulk substantially regularly; that is to say, in a stream at a more or less regular rate. Hereinafter the words coin and coins are used as including not only monetary coins but also tokens and other pieces with which my invention may be useful. Commonly such devices are used to feed such articles to other machines or devices, for example counting machines, in order that the later may have at all times a quantity of coins on which to operate without at any time being overburdened with a considerable excess. The device of my invention therefore may be either a part of a larger machine such as a coin counter for example, or it may be a machine complete in itself for use whenever a more or less regular flow of coins, tokens, etc. is needed.

Devices of the kind to which my invention relates comprise primarily a pocketed member which forms, say, a moving bottom or, say, an inclined side wall of a hopper into which the mass of coins is dumped; coins enter the pockets beneath the mass and the movement of the member then carries them to a point of discharge. Heretofore I have proposed to make each Asuch pocket larger than the volume of a plurality of coins, thereby increasing the rate of entry of coins into the pockets and accordingly the delivery rate of this type of device. I have found however that these machines with large pockets are inclined to catch coins between the pockets and the discharge port on occasion and thus jam the machine, one or more coins being partly within a pocket and partly within the discharge port as the pocket begins to move away from the discharge port. I believe that this is due to a (usually partial) wedging of coins in the pockets and accordingly slow escape of the coins from the pocket at the discharge point. Such wedging may be due to the coins falling by gravity into the pocket in a wedging relation on grouping, or to the weight of thecoin mass forcing a coin into a, say, loosely filled pocket moving toward the discharging point.

My present invention at least minimizes the tendency of such machines or devices to jam.

The accompanying drawing illustrates the preferred form of my invention embodied in a coin feeder shown attached to and feeding a centrifugal-disc type of coin counter: Fig. l is a vertical section of the feeder and a small part of the counting mechanism; Fig. 2 is a section on the line II-II of Fig, 1 looking in the direction of the arrows, a part of the coin carrier being broken away in o-rder to reveal more of the escape or discharge port; Fig. 3 is a perspective of a part of the pocketed coin carrier; Fig. 4 is a diagrammatic plan View of one of the pockets.

This feeder has a hopper 1I in which the mass 1939, Serial No. 261,724

of coins is placed, say a bag of a thousand halfdollars, filling the hopper to the line 2. A circular, more or less disc-like, coin carrier 3 forms in eiTect a floor or an inclined side wall of the hopper, as is now customary, being placed at a considerable .angle to the horizontal so as to both reach underneath and extend above the top 2 of the coin mass as shown in Fig, l; the coindischarge point 4 is then placed above the top 2 of the coin mass. Preferably, I let the coin mass rest against the whole of the carrier up to the top 2 of the mass. The carrier 3 may be supported by a bearing 5 and rotated by a spindle 6 and gears 'I and 8; ordinarily the latter rotate the carrier continuously While the machine is in operation. As shown, the coin-carrying pockets I4 may be distributed around the periphery of the carrier disc 3 in one or more rows, and usually they are pierced completely through the carrier and a stationary plate I5 provided underneath the carrier to close the bottoms of the pockets, except at the discharge point 4; the latter is then a port pierced through the plate I5. It will be apparent accordingly that as the rotation of the carrier 3 passes the pockets I4 underneath the coin mass, coins fall from the bottom of the mass into the pockets and are carried thereby to the discharge port 4 through which they fall as the pockets respectively pass over it. A chute I6 directs the coins from port `4 onto the centrifugal disc I'I of the counter. Usually at least as many pockets are provided as can be accommodated in a row adjacent the periphery of the disc. The discharge port 4 may be rather long circumferentially (Fig. 2), so as to span the space of a few pockets and thus give each pocket what is usually ample time to empty in crossing the discharge port; preferably the discharge port extends to both sides of the highest position occupied by a pocket (-Fig. 2). For convenience of construction the plate I5 can be iianged as at I8 to provide a part of the hopper or to support the outer portion of it (Fig. l). Preferably the cuter ends of the pockets I4 are closed by walls forming parts of the carrier (Figs. 1 and 3) so as t-o prevent the coins in the pockets from rubbing on any such containing wall as I8, and preferably I extend this outer wall (which may be an integral part of the carrier member' yi as illustrated) as an upstanding peripheral iiange IS for the purpose, particularly, of causing the last coins left in the hopper to slide into the pockets I4. Each of the pockets I4 is made large enough to hold a number of the largest coins the pocket can receive; preferably to this end each pocket is given transverse dimensions greater than the diameter of the largest coin the machine is intended to handle and is made of a depth about equal to the sum of the thicknesses of a number of such coins; a plurality'of these largest coins then can character at these positions.

lie face to face in the pocket, one on another, and with the lowest coin lying face down against the pocket bottom or plate I5. For example, each pocket lll may be large enough diametrically to hold half-dollars and of suicient rdepth or longitudinal length to contain completely four or iive half-dollars lying face to face. Such oversize or multiple-coin pockets admit coins at a high rate and thus give the device a high rate of coin delivery, It will be understood of course that a machine capable of handling large coins such as half-dollars is capable of handling smaller coins as well.I Usually only coins of one denomination (size) are handled by these feeders at a time.

Usually also I make the carrier 3 materially thicker at the outer or peripheral ends of the pockets than at their inner ends; that is to say, while the dimension 22E may be equal to the sum of the thicknesses of say four or five halfdollars, i usually make the dimension 2W materially greater than this as indicated in the drawing; such additional thickness as and where illustrated aids in establishing a high rate of coin entry into the pockets by aiding the entry of coins from substantially any position and direction; and also provides for the escape, back to the coin mass, of any excess received in a pocket or coins only partly contained in a pocket.

As before indicated, devices wherein the coin pockets are constructed as so far described in order to permit ready entry of the coins into the pockets and thereby the device given a high rate of coin delivery generally seem peculiarly susceptible to failure of the coins to leave the pockets at the discharge port l on occasion, and peculiarly susceptible to the coins escaping from the pockets so slowly on occasion that occasionally one or more of the coins is caught between the rear or trailing walls of the pockets and the escape port and thereby the machine jammed. I avoid, or minimize, this fault by giving each pocket such a shape that substantially none of the groupings or arrangements in which it is possible to dispose a plurality of coins in a pocket, is a grouping or arrangement n which the coins are wedged therein; or at least I employ such a shape that there are substantially no (i. e. there are at most only a minimum number of) wedging groupings or arrangements that can exist when the pocket is positioned at the discharge port, and preferably substantially no (i. e. as few as conveniently possible) wedging relations that can exist in the pocket when the pocket is at some point between the top of the coin mass and the discharge port, but substantially any wedging grouping that may have been formed inthe pocket is deprived of its wedging As a result of such shaping the coins are loose in the pockets at the discharge port and hence escape through the discharge port promptly on arrival at that port, and if the shaping is such that coins can be wedged into a pocket underneath the coin mass, the wedging relation is destroyed subsequently and the coins loosened in time to permit their ready escape at the discharge port.

All the walls of a pocket can be perpendicular to the bottom plate l5, although this is not a necessary feature of my invention as will be apparent from the foregoing. Also each side of ythe pocket (as viewed looking directly at a face of the disc, e. g. as in Fig. 4) is preferably substantially a straight line rather than a curve of a radius approximating the radius of the largest coin; however, a curve of a materially longer radius is satisfactory, note side 2| of Fig. 4. Preferably also the two side walls 22 and 23 adjacent the top of the pocket flare outwardly and downwardly as represented in Fig. 4. I here use such expressions as top and down with reference to the pocket when occupying its highest position (Ma in Fig. 2), or at the discharge point 4. Should two or more coins lie with their faces toward each of two such walls as 22 and 23 and these two groups be keyed in place in the pocket, as it were, by, say, another coin extending more or less radially of the disc, the latter coin is likely to be jarred from its keying or wedging relation as the pocket moves into the upper half of its path, or it may even fall by gravity from its keying position as the pocket reverses its position in moving upwardly; in either case all the coins are loose in the pocket as the pocket passes over the discharge port 4 and hence the coins fall quickly from the pocket into this port and hence pass without jamming in the machine. To facilitate such unkeying or wedge-releasing action, I preferably make a transverse dimension 24 of the pocket between the two opposing sides greater than the length oi either of the walls 22 and 23, or make the depth dimension ila between the two opposing sides (or those two sides extended) sufliciently small relative to the diameter of the largest coin to permit or induce such unkeying movement; both expedients can be used. Preferably also the nearer ends of the walls 22 and 23 are separated by a third wall as 2|, rather than brought together and thereby forming a narrow angle in which one or more coins might wedge directly; i. e. all angles between adjacent walls are preferably made approximately equal to right angles or larger. Preferably substantially the same applies to all opposing or non-adjacent walls of the pockets; that is to say, all oppositely facing walls, for example 2| and 25, and 2| and 25, flare outwardly from each other toward the center of the pocket (as sides 22 and 23 are farther separated horizontally of the center of the pocket than at the side 2| 1flig. 4), an intermediate dimension of the pocket permits that movement of a coin or coins between them that is necessary for unkeying or breaking the wedged coin structure, and the nearer ends of the two oppositely facing sides are separated by a third side as 2E is separated from 25 by wall 23 and 2i is separated from 26 by wall 22, thus avoiding small angles between any two adjacent sides. The flaring of the oppositely facing walls can be expressed in this way also: Preferably wherever two walls (for example 2| and 25, and 2| and 26) are joined by a single wall (as 2| and 25 are joined by wall 23, and 2| and 26 are joined by wall 22), those two walls converge toward a point on the side of the single wall which is opposite the pocket (as, for example, walls 2| and 25 converge toward a point outside the pocket back of wall 23, and walls 2| and 26 converge toward another point outside the pocket back of wall 22). Conceivably unkeying movements of wedging coins may be caused by gravity as a pocket reverses top and bottom in passing from its lowest position in the hopper to its highest position and again partly reverses in passing from its highest position to the rear end of the discharge port, or by the jarring of the device which results from the rotation of the carrier disc, or by these two acting together, or by resistance of the coin mass, acting on a projecting wedging coinvbeing dragged through the mass.

Preferably also the length of each intermediintermediate opposing walls 22 and 23) somewhat greater than the diameter of the largest coin the machine is intended to handle; for lower intermediate walls or intermediate walls between non-adjacent walls that flare from each other at a large angle, and walls that make a rather large angle with each other, this does not seem to be of so much importance; and for example such adjacent walls as wall 25 (also an intermediate wall between 23 and 26) and wall 26 (also an intermediate wall between 22 and 25) may have lengths somewhat less than the diameter of the largest coin.

More preferably the shape of each pocket (as viewed looking directly at a face of the carrier disc) is a polygon, and a polygon of an odd number of sides, and most preferably is a pentagon disposed as illustrated in the drawing. In the pentagon shown, the side 2| is curved on a center at the center of the disc, mostly for convenience of construction; the length of each of the sides 2l, 22 and 23 is somewhat greater than the diameter of the largest coin the machine is intended to handle (substantially indicated by the broken line at 21), and the length of each of the two lower sides 25 and 2B is somewhat less than this coin diameter. I have found that such a pocket functions quite effectively.

It will be understood that my invention is not limited to the details of construction and operation described above except as appears hereinafter in the claims. In those claims I use the expressions such as top and bottom" with reference to a pocket at a position corresponding to its highest position in Fig. 2; e. g. the position of pocket Ida.

I claim:

l. A coin feeder having a hopper, a member forming a wall of the hopper being provided with a multiple-walled pocket to take coins from a mass of coins in the hopper and being movable to transport coins in the pocket to a point of discharge, characterized by the fact that wherever any two walls of the pocket are joined by a single wall, said two walls converge ltoward a point on the side of said single wall'which is opposite the pocket.

2. A coin feeder having a hopper, a member forming a wall of the hopper being provided with a multiple-walled pocket to take coins from a mass of coins in the hopper and being movable to transport coins in the pocket to a point of discharge, characterized by the fact that wherever any two walls of the pocket are joined by a single wall, said two walls converge toward a point on the side of said single wall which is opposite the pocket and the pocket has such dimensions as to permit the largest coin that can enter the pocket to move in the general direction of the extent of the respective opposing walls.

3. A coin feeder having a hopper, a member forming a wall of the hopper being provided with a pocket to take coins from a mass of coins in the hopper and being movable to transport coins in the pocket to a point of discharge, characterized by the fact that wherever any two walls of lthe pocket are joined by a single wall, said two walls converge toward a point on the side of said single wall which is opposite the pocket and at least one wall is provided between those ends of substantially each two opposing walls whereat the respective opposing walls approach most nearly to each other.

4. A coin feeder having a hopper to receive a mass of coins, a member providing a wall of the hopper and extending from below the top of the coin mass to a coin-discharge point above the top of the mass and being provided with a plurality of coin-receiving pockets each larger than the sum of the volumes of a plurality of the largest coins that can enter the pockets, said member being rotatable to transport coins in the pockets to said point of discharge, characterized by the fact that the sides of said plurality of pockets are substantially straight and of lengths at least equal to approximately the diameter of the largest coin that can enter the pockets, wherever any two walls of the pocket are joined by a single wall said two walls converge toward a point in the side of said single wall which is opposite the pocket, at least one wall is provided between those ends of substantially each two opposing walls whereat the respective opposing walls approach most nearly to each other, and the pockets are of such dimensions as to permit the largest coin that can enter the pockets 'to move in the general direction of the extent of substantially each two such non-adjacent walls.

5. A coin feeder having a hopper to receive a mass of coins, a member providing a wall of the hopper and extending from below the top of the coin mass to a coin-discharge point above the top of the mass and being provided with a plurality of coin-receiving pockets each of a depth greater than the sum of the thicknesses of a plurality of the largest coins that can enter the pockets, said member being rotatable to transport coins in the pockets to said point of discharge, characterized by the fact that each of said plurality of pockets has the shape of a polygon of substantially straight sides.

6. A coin feeder having a hopper to receive a mass of coins, a member providing a wall of the hopper and extending from below the top of the coin mass to a coin-discharge point above the top of themass and being provided with a plurality of coin-receivingl pockets each larger than the sum of the volumes of a plurality of the largest coins that can enter the pockets, said member being rotatable to transport coins in the pockets to said point of discharge, characterized by the fact that each of said plurality of pockets has the shape of a polygon having an odd number of substantially straight sides and more than three sides.

7. The subject matter of claim 6, further characterized by the fact that the polygon is a pentagon.

8. The subject matter of claim 5, further characterized by the fact that said member is thicker at the peripheral ends of the pockets than at their inner ends.

BRUNO E. SEEMEL. 

